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Monday, April 04, 2011

What Times-bashers won't tell you about the New York Times and Goldstone

Today's rapidly spreading Internet rumor is that the New York Times refused to publish Richard Goldstone's retraction of the central assertion in his 2009 report on the Gaza War. This rumor is spreading like brushfire via RW sites, and RW email. Why? Likely because it seems to confirm a central, yet unexamined, RW article of faith regarding the fundamental nature of the Times. Of course the Times hates Israel, goes the conspiracy-minded RW line of thought, so of course they suppressed an op-ed article that might have rehabilitated Israel's image, and of course they did this out of sheer bias, and explicit hatred of Israel.

Only like most rapidly-spreading Internet rumors, the truth is more complicated.
THE FIRST THING TIMES-BASHERS WON'T TELL YOU
The rumor about the Times's mendacity is based on a Yedioth Achronoth article that cites an anonymous source. That's right. Some of the same people who insist anonymous bloggers are unreliable simply because they are anonymous are in this case fully willing to accept the reliability of Yedioth's unnamed source. Here's how Ynet, owned by the same conglomerate as Yedioth, reports the story:

Yedioth Ahronoth reported Monday that a source close to Goldstone stated that in the past few days the judge had approached the editor of the New York Times opinion pages requesting to post the article he wrote in the paper – and was told his article was rejected.

Not very convincing stuff. Two specific problems: We're not told how the source uncovered this information ("Close to Goldstone" means only they are friends or acquaintances, not that Goldstone briefed the person on his dealings with the Times; also we're not told why the source refuses to be named. If we're not told why the source asked for anonymity, it becomes harder to rule out any ulterior motives he might have had for revealing the information. Unless we're provided with some other reason, "Refuses to be named... because he knows he's lying" remains a possibility.)

A source familiar with the paper's dealings with Goldstone says this report isn't true. The Times saw a very different op-ed by Goldstone about two weeks ago, just one in a series of articles he'd written trying to clarify and finesse the meaning of the report; the paper rejected it because it said nothing new, the source said.

Here, too, we're not told why the source elected to remain anonymous, so "refuses to be named... because he knows he's lying" is a possibility. However, Politico does do us the favor of telling us how the source knows what he knows, making this anonymous claim slightly more credible. But, even if you don't agree with this assessment, you're still left with a draw: One anonymous source says X, the other anonymous source says Y, leaving us with no grounds to say what is or is not the truth. If you're biased against the Times, you'll believe they maliciously suppressed the retraction; if you're biased in favor of the Times, you'll believe they weren't actually offered a retraction, and for legitimate journalistic reasons rejected an op-ed that was substantivity different from the article that appeared in the Post.

The leader of a United Nations panel that investigated Israel’s invasion of Gaza two years ago has retracted the central and most explosive assertion of its report — that Israel intentionally killed Palestinian civilians there.

If the Times spiked the op-ed for political reasons, or from some mendacious desire to hide the truth from the public, why did they print this article?

UPDATE: Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy emails, "We did in fact receive an Op-Ed submission from Richard Goldstone on March 22, but that piece bears no resemblance to the one that was published in the Washington Post on Sunday."

If it relates to Jews, Judaism, holidays, Midrash,Torah, halacha or anything similar, I probably have a post on it. And if I have a post on it, I probably have a good comment thread with great reader-provided information, too.

Try a search and see for yourself. If you can't find what you're looking for ask me.

Quotes

רֹאשׁ דְּבָרְךָ אֱמֶת קוֹרֵא מֵרֹאשׁ דּוֹר וָדוֹר עַם דּוֹרֶשְׁךָ דְּרֹשׁ
Your chief word is "truth"; You've called it out since the beginning. In each generation people interpret You [for themselves] and find [their own] meaning.

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd. -Flannery O'Connor

“When in the afterglow of religious insight I can see a way that is good for all humans as it is for me—I will know it is His way.” - R. Abraham Joshua Heschel

I don't accept at all the quite popular argument that the press is responsible for the monarchy's recent troubles. The monarchy's responsible for the monarchy's recent troubles. To blame the press is the old thing of blaming the messenger for the message. -Anthony Holden

Said behind my back

"...he's trying to show that there are other facets to Orthodox Judaism. That we don't all think one way and vote one way. And he's occasionally entertaining when he's not being mean-spirited" [PsychoToddler]"

"He's witty. He's funny. He appreciates the ridiculous in life, and has no qualms about telling you when he thinks that you're being a moron" [Cara]

" I'm pretty sure [DovBear] is a really great guy who just wants to be able to ask questions and talk about things without the fear of someone claiming he's off the derech or on his way there." [Chaviva]